


A New Life

by myladyriver



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: narcissa and andromeda are mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 03:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14300037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myladyriver/pseuds/myladyriver
Summary: When Bellatrix arrived at Hogwarts, she was jaded, all of eleven years old, well-read and clever, distrustful. She was small for her age, scrawny, fine-boned, perhaps sixty lbs., with a shock of tar-black ringlets that could never be properly reined in or fully restrained. The Sorting Hat had barely touched her curls before proclaiming her to be among the ambitious, cunning, and resourceful— a true Slytherin.





	A New Life

When Bellatrix arrived at Hogwarts, she was jaded, all of eleven years old, well-read and clever, distrustful. She was small for her age, scrawny, fine-boned, perhaps sixty lbs., with a shock of tar-black ringlets that could never be properly reined in or fully restrained. The Sorting Hat had barely touched her curls before proclaiming her to be among the ambitious, cunning, and resourceful— a true Slytherin. 

In entering the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Bellatrix was leaving behind her two younger sisters and was truly away from her family for the first time in her life. It was difficult to say which of these two circumstances had a greater effect on the young witch. Andromeda and particularly Narcissa, the baby of the family, were constantly on her thoughts from the moment they’d parted at the platform at King’s Cross, but as the days passed and they got further into the semester and deeper into their classes, she found more and more of her energy going into her studies. 

By Halloween, an evening might find Bellatrix sitting in a high-backed leather chair in the Slytherin Common Room, homework in her lap, her booted feet kicked up on the coffee table and her long tresses down around her shoulders. The last two would have earned her hell at home, so while she may have been sitting, most nights, on her own, she possessed a quiet contentment that she held sacred and guarded most sharply. It was, more than anything, that warmth, that almost-happiness, that had her dreading the Christmas Holidays, when she would be expected to go home to the family manor. More than fear and resentment of her parents, more than going back to her old way of living, her desperation centered most around the rare and precious feeling she’d discovered in being on her own at Hogwarts. The thought of being caught up on what her sisters, for whom she had always been responsible, had been put through in her absence only just compared to her abject horror at admitting she hadn’t suffered along with them and had, in fact, found what felt like her place at last.

She counted the weeks down and her visceral apprehension grew, spreading through her body until her feet dragged when she walked from class to class. Months became weeks which became days until the train “home” was scheduled to leave. She packed, and re-packed, nesting her school books amongst her robes, rationalizing that her professors would most likely assign them homework over the Holidays. She also tucked away an advanced Herbology textbook for Narcissa and a Care of Magical Creatures tome for Andromeda. She hoped they’d appreciate them— she was oddly nervous about sharing her new life with them. They might be her younger siblings, but she craved their approval. Not that she would ever admit it to herself or them, but she was desperately afraid they would resent her for her newfound freedom. She knew they were home, living under their father’s rule, hurting without their eldest sister as their shield, and she ached to ease their pain at the same time that the coward in her just wanted to appease their suffering so she could escape the family estate again as soon as possible. She loathed that part of herself, but it was inescapable.


End file.
